Athletic director Morgan Burke wants Purdue back in the Rose Bowl, and he’s willing to put his money on Darrell Hazell to get there.

After a whirlwind week of speculation, Burke ended the chatter by introducing the former Ohio State assistant as the Boilermakers’ coach yesterday.

Hazell, 46, who has been the coach at Kent State the past two seasons, received a six-year contract that came with a succinct message from Burke: The Cradle of Quarterbacks is about to start rocking again.

“We did it because we want to get back to Pasadena,” Burke said.

Hazell’s success in his first job as a head coach is reason for optimism. He left Jim Tressel’s staff at Ohio State to take over historically bad Kent State. The Golden Flashes went 5-7 in 2011, good enough to give long-suffering fans hope in 2012.

Kent State delivered on that promise, too, finishing 11-2 for the school’s first winning season since 2001. The Flashes won the Mid-American Conference East Division title and will play in the GoDaddy.com Bowl on Jan. 6.

“I had two goals when I went to Kent State,” said Hazell, who still will coach the Flashes in the bowl game. “One was to win a MAC championship, and the other was to go to a bowl game. So this (Purdue job) is too big to miss.”

Cincinnati coach says he hasn’t accepted job

Cincinnati coach Butch Jones denied that he has agreed to become the coach at Colorado.

In a text message to the Associated Press last night, Jones called a report that he has accepted the position “absolutely false.”

Colorado officials later issued a statement, saying, “We are still in the active process of hiring our next head football coach. We have nothing to confirm at this time.”

Bielema: Alvarez might coach in Rose Bowl

Former Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema said he won’t coach the Badgers in the Rose Bowl. He has an idea who might, however.

Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez has a news conference scheduled for this morning where he’s expected to discuss staffing for the Rose Bowl. Alvarez was Bielema’s predecessor at Wisconsin, and there’s speculation that he will return to the sideline when the Badgers play Stanford on Jan. 1.

“I just heard that before I came here,” Bielema said during his introduction as Arkansas’ coach, “which would be awesome.”

Notable

California hired Louisiana Tech coach Sonny Dykes to take over for the fired Jeff Tedford.

Dykes will be formally introduced at a news conference today.

• Florida International fired coach Mario Cristobal after six seasons.

The Panthers were 3-9 this season after being widely picked to win the Sun Belt Conference before moving to Conference USA next season. • Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o won the Lombardi Award, which goes to the nation’s best lineman or linebacker, and Tyler Eifert won the John Mackey Award as the top tight end.